Recent News

Children nowadays have 24×7 access to technology and live in a digital world. While this has immense benefits, parents are increasingly concerned for their children’s safety and the kind of content they are being exposed to. Microsoft provides several features and apps across its devices and services which provide children with a secure digital environment and parents with peace of mind. Services such as My Family, Kid’s Corner, Guardian and web filtering help parents to monitor and manage what their children are consuming on the Internet.

“Technology is always latest on cloud and if partners provide cloud-based services to their customers it will certainly expand their customer base,” said Hrushikesh Desai, Cloud Specialist, Microsoft, during the Vadodara Tech Caravan event. Highlighting benefits of Office 365, Desai said that it abolishes maintenance costs for midsize business enterprises. He said Office 365 provides manageability, flexibility, security and control and energy efficiency.

Microsoft has joined hands with Guide Dogs charity and the UK’s Future Cities Catapult to develop a revolutionary gadget, which will help the visually impaired navigate through crowded subways, trains and roads with little or no help from passers-by. According to the Microsoft website, the headset will work with Windows phones to give the wearer voice instructions to help them navigate an unfamiliar area. The device is said to provide orientation, navigation and contextual information through the built-in GPS tracker, compass and gyroscope.

The customization-focused November update for the Xbox One has gone live, and can be downloaded now by owners of the console worldwide. According to Microsoft, one of the most requested features from fans of the Xbox One has been the ability to use custom backgrounds. Now, each profile will be able to have its own colour scheme and background. Moreover, user bios can now be updated with location, and tweet game clips directly via a share button. The update also brings a fresh ‘Games with Gold’ section on SmartGlass.

Microsoft India is ready with a plan to provide free last-mile Internet connectivity across the country. It proposes to use the white space—the unused spectrum between two TV channels—to provide free connectivity to large sections of the Indian population. Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India, said, “Wi-Fi has a range of only about 100 meters, whereas the 200-300 MHz spectrum band available in the white space can reach up to 10 km. This spectrum belongs mainly to Doordarshan and the government has not used it at all. We have sought clearance for a pilot project in two districts.”

Microsoft recently hosted a round of CODESS, a global community for women coders, at its Microsoft India Development Center campus in Hyderabad. Codess was established by Skype in March 2013 to explore ways to promote gender diversity in the field of engineering. Codess entered India in May 2014 in Bangalore and Codess Hyderabad is one in a series of Codess events worldwide and second in the series to be organized in India. Themed ‘Coding an Innovative Enterprise’, Codess Hyderabad provided the attendees an opportunity to interact with women achievers in the area of engineering.

Microsoft is all set for a fierce competition in the world that is headed towards a cloud-first mobile first era. Tyler Bryson, GM, Marketing and Operations, Microsoft India, said, “We see a proliferation of devices that create and consume data, and the implications are far reaching. The cloud provides immense computing power to facilitate small business to expand without much capital cost and a flexibility of scale that they have never been able to do before.”

Microsoft and IBM are forging a cloud compatibility partnership. they are collaborating with each other so that their database runs on both the IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure supports IBM’s WebSphere Liberty application server platform, MQ middleware, IBM’s Pure Application Service and DB2 database, while IBM Cloud will support Windows Server and SQL Server. Furthermore, the companies are also collaborating to offer Microsoft’s .NET runtime for IBM Cloud, which is the new cloud development platform.

Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella has his work cut out—to ensure that the future of the company would be as secure as its past. Since he took over in February, the company’s stock has jumped 25.6% while Nasdaq has gained 12.1%. Only the third CEO of Microsoft after co-founder Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, since his anointment, Nadella has taken several decisions that count as firsts for the company. Nadella has a tough task ahead, the road is not easy and definitely not the same as 1975, but he has made a solid start and has given Microsoft’s investors every reason to stick back and watch.

Rohit Thakur, Head, HR, Microsoft India talks about how the company is helping female employees push the limits of the glass ceiling. He said, “We have launched a collaborative program called Reach Out with five of India’s leading companies, under which six to seven senior women leaders identified by the participating organizations would form a group of 31 women to be groomed for leadership roles. The eight-month long structured learning program will include group workshops, peer learning circles, leadership dialogues with senior leaders from other participating organizations, a moderated online community to ensure continued dialogue and would conclude with a learning summit, where participants will share their collective experiences.”